Farouk umar Abdulmutallab
The Nigerian-born "underwear bomber" and son of Nigeria's aristocracy,told a bewildered US district court judge in Detroit today that he doesn't want any of his lawyers anymore.
Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab told the the US judge he could defend himself of the charges of attempted murder and attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction ,the second charge, a terrorism count, carries a mandatory sentence of life in prison.
Asked if he had defended any cases in a US court before or if he knew the federal court procedures, he answered in the negative. He then asked the judge how to plead guilty to some of the charges earlier read to him a move a legal observer present in court said might be a signal to his intention to plea bargain with prosecutors.
Farouk is a Nigerian citizen and son of the multi-millionaire banker and former Chairman of First Bank in Nigeria, Alhaji Abdulmuttalab. He was trained in Al Qaeda camps in Yemen and was travelling to the US last December when he tried to blow up a Northwest flight as it approached the Detroit Metro Airport but his bomb failed to detonate as planned, causing him to suffer 3rd degree burns around his genitalia.
"If he went to trial it's almost certain he'd be convicted. The government doesn't have a smoking gun. It has smoking skivvies," said former Chicago-based terrorism prosecutor Lloyd Meyer speaking to the Global Security Newswire, in a reference to the fizzled underwear bomb. Others have called the case "a slam dunk."
After dropping all his lawyers provided by the public defender's office earlier, the judge asked that a certified lawyer stick with Farouk through out the trial regardless of how he pleads or conducts himself during the trial, which is expected to be expedited in view of his personal decisions to jettison his counsel.
The case is scheduled to be heard Oct. 14, 2010.
